Feuchtwanger Fellow

ONUR BURÇAK BELLI

Onur Burçak Belli is a Turkish-Syrian journalist mainly covering political conflicts as
well as its far-reaching outcomes both in Turkey, Middle East and the broader region.

She has 11 years of experience as a journalist working for both national and international mainstream media outlets. She started her career as a journalist at Hurriyet Daily News of Turkey's leading media conglomerate Dogan Group. She successively worked for Newsweek Turkey, HaberTurk TV, RTL, BBC World Service, Channel 4 News, Fairfax Media, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and more.

She has closely followed the war in Syria and the recent military operations against the Kurdish minority in Turkey. She was based in Damascus researching Syria's reform plans and the Sunni-Alawite conflicts amongst the ruling elite regarding these plans, when the uprising started in March 2011.

Burcak's main focus recently has been the unrest and the authoritarian transformation of the state in Turkey. She is now working on her book about her testimony as a journalist, a human and an ordinary citizen to the milestone incidents of transformation through state crack down, unrest and violent attacks.

More about her

Composer

STEFAN BEYER

Berlin-based composer Stefan Beyer, recipient of the 2017 Toru Takemitsu Award, resides at Villa Aurora from April through June. He has studied composition in Leipzig, Germany and Gothenburg, Sweden. Past fellowships include Cité des Arts Paris, France, Beethoven House Bonn, Germany, and Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, Germany. He received grants and scholarships i. e. by the Berlin Senate, the State of Saxony, the Else Heiliger Fonds at Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).

Stefan will be talking about his past works as well as his current artistic activities.

Listen to Stefan's music on soundcloud.com

Visual Artist

MARIA SCHRADER

Maria Schrader is one of Germany's most acclaimed actresses, she is a two-time winner of the German Film Award and three-time winner of the Bavarian Film Award. She has worked with directors such as Margarethe von Trotta, Doris Dörrie, Peter Greenaway and Agnieszka Holland ("In Darkness"). She was awarded the Berlinale's Silver Bear as Best Actress in "Aimée & Jaguar" by Max Färberböck, nominated for the Golden Globes in 2000.

Her debut as a director, "Love Life" was shot in Israel and premiered at the Festa del Cinema in Rome in 2007. "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe" screened at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival and had theatrical releases in more than 15 countries. It was Austria's 2017 Oscar submission and opened in the US shortly after. It won the People's Choice Award for Best European Movie at the 2017 European Film Awards.

As an actress Maria Schrader recently appeared in the renowned series "Deutschland 83" (International Emmy for Best Series in 2016). She completed the second season during the last year as well as the BBC mini "The City and The City", which screened at the Series Mania Festival in Lille, France, just last month.

She will use her time at the Villa Aurora to work on new directing projects.